Even as Google’s new Jelly Bean update begins to steal the headlines, Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades are still pouring through.
The Galaxy S II Skyrocket, powered by AT&T, received the Ice Cream Sandwich Android upgrade months ago. The only problem is it wasn’t official.
Hackers managed to sneak their way into the Samsung treasure trove and pilfer the software file, but now, the update is actually going live over Kies. The official update brings users to version 4.0.4, unlike the unofficial 4.0.3 update.
Ice Cream Sandwich is one of the biggest updates to Android yet, and includes such features as scanning your face to unlock the phone, a much more robust speech-to-text software program, and an entire platform of data sharing that focuses on Near Field Communication (NFC).
Several other manufacturers have pledged support for the new update, and a bunch of phones currently running an older version of Android.
Ice Cream Sandwich is now powering a decent amount of active Android devices, despite having a slow initial rollout in the early part of the year. Google saw Android 4.0 as a big reset button on the mobile platform, since it has much stricter hardware guidelines that it hopes will help prevent fragmentation in the future.
The only problem is that Ice Cream Sandwich is already fragmented, with some phones running version 4.0.3 and some running 4.0.4, and now Jelly Bean is threatening to fragment the market even more. Perhaps that goal just isn’t realistic.
